


Spooky Action

by Nanyoky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Artists, Blood Drinking, Dark Comedy, Death, Explicit Language, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, India, Inspired by a Movie, Musicians, New York City, Only Lovers Left Alive - Freeform, Vampires, as per usual nothing confirmed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-04 00:01:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10978140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanyoky/pseuds/Nanyoky
Summary: prompt: Only Lovers Left Alive Maximoff AU, Lorna as their sister can be incesty or not as you prefer





	Spooky Action

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/gifts).



> Thank you EssayOfThoughts for helping me find my vampy calling in life.  
> Some plot points edited and simplified to keep myself from starting another multi-chapter I will rarely update.  
> [The Playlist!](https://8tracks.com/nellmakinjams/spooky-action) Or you could just listen to the Only Lovers Left Alive soundtrack. It's a good'n.

_I’ve been composing a lot and I’m sad._

Wanda frowned at the message on her phone for at least an hour, lying on top of her covers, letting the rickety fan in the corner of her room blow her hair across her face. Not that she hadn’t been lonely too. But she didn’t think it had been all that long. However, now that she thought of it, she had been in Mumbai for over three years. She had been gone for longer before of course, but they never liked it much.

She got up and started to pack immediately. She put a local band on and started with the clothes. She hadn’t been to New York in years and wasn’t sure what the current trends were. But it was early in spring, so she pulled out stockings and shawls alongside her linen sundresses. With a layer of clothes laid down, she started on the books. Halfway through packing Bronte and Morrison, she turned her phone on speaker to order the ticket.

“Yes I would like to order a one way ticket from Mumbai to Queens. Name: Mary Kathrine Blackwood. Date of birth—“ it took her a moment to do the mental math according to the year and how old they supposedly looked—“October 30th, 19…91.”

~

Pietro woke to a knocking on the door and six text messages. He scrolled past the five from the person he knew was on the stoop and opened Wanda’s.

_I’m coming for you, Drágám._

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he took the stairs two at a time.

“Peter- come up.” He jerked his head toward the sagging staircase.

The young man at the door grinned and shifted his weight under the four cases he was carrying.

“You’re in a good mood, huh?”

“Don’t know what you mean.” He took the case in Peter’s left hand and flopped onto the couch, flicking open the catch. “What do you have today?”

“Two I know I got for a steal and two I’m not sure on.” Peter set down the rest of the cases on top of the towers of magazines on the coffee table. “You’ve got the… Airline, I think.”

“Great year for them…” Pietro lifted the guitar out of the case. “Looks like original hardware. You could pay for your whole first semester off this.”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll hate to see her go. She’s a total babe, right?”

Pietro shrugged and put the instrument back.

“What else?” He opened the second case and grinned. “1962 Harmony. Piece of shit new, as is should be hung on a novelty bar wall.”

“Yeah, I was afraid of that. But the color’s nice, so I-“

“I’ll have it.”

He’d bought a similar one new for Wanda after she had dragged him to San Francisco and kissed Janis Joplin their first night there. She’d danced around their flat with it for what seemed like days, but had probably been just a particularly smoky afternoon. She wasn’t bad at guitar, but her interest in any music had always been more casual than his, and she preferred stylish instruments over quality. Visual art and words had always been more her thing.

“Really?” Peter shook his head, smiling. “Your tacky tastes are putting me through school. Thanks, man.”

“No problem.”

Pietro flipped through the last two and set aside another. He reached into his pocket and peeled off a stack of large bills from the roll he kept on himself at all times.

“That’s way too much!”

“I’m paying for the Airline as well,” Pietro pushed the bills at him harder. “But I don’t have room for it so you’re going to have to keep it for me.”

Peter finally took the money. “You know, you sure put a lot of effort into your whole disgruntled loaner vibe for someone so nice.”

“I’m not nice. I’m just in a good mood.”

“Yeah? You finish that concerto you were working on?”

“No.” He waved his phone as an explanation.

“What? You meet someone? Girl er- guy? Or whoever?”

Pietro gave him a look and he muttered an apology.

“My sister is coming to stay.”

“Oh- the one from your pictures? The cute one?” When Pietro gave him a look even darker than the first, he hastened to go on. “And by cute I mean adorable. Like a chipmunk. Or some other baby animal that I definitely _wouldn’t_ ask out to the movies.”

~

Wanda loved walking through the city. She loved the light pollution and the traffic. She even loved the way every dealer in the city saw her coming a mile away and flocked to offer her their wares. It was a sort of homey welcome she looked for wherever she chose to live.

Clint lived in a nicer neighborhood though, and she was only called at by drunk teenage boys after she passed a certain street.

“’bout time,” he groused, the way he always did. “Been waitin on you all week. Get in here.”

“Do you have some for me?” She brushed past him into his apartment. “I’m running low and I’ll be traveling.”

“Where to?”

She gave him a look as she shrugged off her jacket and sat at his kitchen counter. “Where else?”

He grimaced. “Why he’s gotta pick _Queens_ of all places…”

“We find comfort in places that feel like our childhood.”

“Somehow I’m having trouble finding the similarity between NYC’s armpit and actual literal Sávár under Bathory.”

Wanda couldn’t hold back a smile. “You would understand if you were there.”

He sighed and pulled a pharmacy bag from the fridge before sitting across from her. “Was stuck in Australia at the time.”

“On your third or tenth marriage?”

He scowled. “You know, I don’t _have_ to share my supply. I _could_ leave you without a prayer if I wanted.”

“If you wanted.” She took the bag and pulled out the plastic sack inside. “But you wouldn’t. You would be far too lonely if I were to shrivel up and die.”

“Maybe.”

He took out two mugs and a pair of scissors. Wanda passed the sack from one hand to the other before holding out a corner for him to snip. They poured half into each mug before taking one apiece and clinking them together. Wanda closed her eyes for the first sip, letting all of her senses sing at the rush. It never got old.

“So I had a dream about your sister.”

She nearly choked on her next mouthful. She set her mug down and tried to pull up a smile.

“A good one?”

He gave her a look that said her cheerful tone was not appreciated.

“Guess not…” she sighed and swilled her mug a little. “I really was looking forward to Queens.”

“Better hurry up if you want to get there before her. Hasn’t she been crashing in London lately?”

She nodded, staring into the depths of her cup.

“Well, anyway. Say hi to that obnoxious, delinquent, bipolar twin of yours.”

She smiled and played with a few of her rings. “How is he? When I’m not there, I mean.”

Clint sighed and finished off his drink in one abrupt gulp. Wanda watched him, trying to make sure he didn’t lie.

“He only writes for an audience of one when you’re not there.”

Wanda nodded and finished off her mug as well. “Well, I can’t wait to hear then.”

~

Pietro stocked the fridge to bursting and told Peter not to come for at least a week. He spent an entire night cleaning up after himself. After, the old townhouse didn’t look any better. Papers, instruments and clothes were still scattered everywhere. So instead, he just burned all the incense he could find hidden in drawers and cupboards. It always made him sneeze at first, but Wanda always had some, and he got used to the smell in no time.

After what seemed like an age, the doorbell rang. He thundered down the narrow stairs and wrenched the door open. She only had a small traincase and leather backpack. She dropped both in an instant so he could more easily wrap his arms around her and lift her off her feet. Wanda gripped the back of his neck and pressed her lips to his jaw and cheek.

“I’m so-“

“I can’t have you being sad, can I?” She pulled back, but kept her hands on his face. “How are you?”

“Better by the moment.” He couldn’t decide if he wanted to keep looking at her or hold her again. “Come in.”

She giggled as he took her hands and stepped back, refusing to turn away from her.

“Have I changed so much?”

“Not in the slightest.”

He picked her up again, this time ducking to fit an arm behind her knees so he could carry her up the stairs more easily. She hummed and let her head fall to his shoulder.

“I missed this. Clint won’t carry me anywhere. And I have _asked_.”

“He’s an old man and a bastard.”

“Mhm…” she pressed a kiss to his jaw as he sat on the couch, still holding her. “Smells nice in here. Is that for me, _Drágám_?”

“Of course.”

She kissed him again. “This place is beautiful. You know how I love these brownstones. They get better every decade.”

“Mhm…” Pietro didn’t much care about architecture, and had picked the place because it looked like something she would like to visit often. “It’s quiet. For Queens, I mean. Quiet when I want it to be, but gunshots when I need them.”

“How exciting.” She played with a bleached lock of hair at his temple. “And do you have friends here? Be honest.”

He grimaced and dropped his head back. “A kid going to MIT comes once a week to sell me his antique shop finds.”

“And he’s your friend?” she reached to keep playing with his hair while she pressed.

“Better be, for what I pay him.”

She snorted and dropped her head on his shoulder. His hand automatically followed, combing through her long hair.

“I will have to meet him. To make sure you have not been too cold to him.”

“I don’t know how to be anything else.”

She kissed his shoulder through his tshirt. “Yes you do.”

~

Wanda pressed Pietro until he took her out to his favorite haunts the next night. He took her to the water. To the shipyards that smelled like fish and rust. Then to the Botanical garden, because he knew the gaurds’ route. They lay down under the roses and she told him everything she had read and painted since they had been together last.

“Clint still lives there too, but he’ll be moving on soon. I think his favorite delivery boy noticed he looks too good for being born in ’62.”

He laughed. “Well, he does. For 1162.”

“Mmm. He’ll outlive us all.” She ran her thumb over the back of his hand, thinking. “Are you going to let me hear what you’ve been composing when we get home?”

He made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. “Maybe this morning. When you’re too tired to care much.”

“Oh stop.” She turned her head to watch him. The moonlight peaked through the leaves to speckle his face. “You said you’ve been sad.”

He kept his eyes on the stars, but lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles. “I’m not now.”

“But you have been.” She refused to let him push off the subject. It pained her, that she could never actually see who he was when she wasn’t around. She missed him, of course. But reason told her his moods shifted much darker than her own with the loneliness. “Pietro…”

He sighed and was quiet for a few minutes. But Wanda knew he was only trying to think of the words to use.

“I… I had a dream about Lorna.”

Wanda’s heart sank. She tried to keep her voice lifted though.

“Oh? It’s been so long.”

“Not long enough.”

“Pietro…” Wanda couldn’t help but agree, and only protested out of tired obligation. “She _is_ our sister.”

“News to me.”

“Well, we have the same father.” She chewed her lip a moment. “I… also had a dream about her.”

“Fuck.”

~

The door was unlocked when they came back to the house. They made brief eye contact before stepping into the hall, moving wearily and clearing their corners in each doorway like Clint taught them that time he had been a police officer in the 20s. There was music coming from the living room. Pietro toed the door open.

She was lying on the couch, asleep. But she blinked her eyes open the moment his foot touched carpet.

“Oh- Babes!” she sat up and stretched, grinning at them both. “How long’s it been this time?”

“What the fuck did you do to your hair?”

Pietro felt Wanda stand on his foot.

“I’m just trying to be like my rockstar big brother.” Lorna crossed to them and tugged at his hair while she stood on her toes to kiss his cheek roughly.

“Lorna…” Wanda let her hug her. “Welcome.”

“Haven’t played rock in ages.” The protest was too late, but he said it anyway. Lorna only smiled at him over Wanda’s shoulder.

“You two look good. Been together all this time?” She made a small snort as she pulled away from the hug. “Of course you have.”

“Actually, I’ve been in Mumbai while Pietro stays here.”

“Oh!” She raised her brows, tinted bottle green to match her hair. “There’s a surprise.”

“We got your message.” Wanda pressed on. Not overly cheerful, but not as antagonistic as Pietro was being.

“Oh- it worked- cool!” Lorna flopped back onto the couch, spreading out her arms along the back and putting her feet up on a stack of magazines. “I wasn’t sure. Never tried it before.”

“I think you need to work on your aim.” Wanda sat next to her. Pietro kept across from them. So he could see all the looks Wanda tossed him. “Clint got one as well.”

“Oh- no- that was on purpose.” She laughed and played with her bangs. “Did he like it?”

“You made him very uncomfortable, I think.”

“You think.” Lorna imitated their accent and snorted. “You two need to work on assimilating is what _I_ think.”

“Not worth the effort.” Wanda chewed her thumbnail. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

“London mostly. The boys there _love_ my confidence.”

“Very nice.”

“Good weather.”

There was Wanda’s first warning look. For being an ass at no provocation. He liked to think of it as preemptive.

“Oh, for _you_ of course. But I’m thinking of moving somewhere warmer. Maybe… Mumbai.”

Pietro gave Wanda _his_ first look. She pretended not to see.

“Well, it _is_ a beautiful city.”

“Or New York.”

“Not much better here.”

Second look. She was having little patience tonight.

“I’m sure you could show me around.” Lorna treated him to her worst smile. “Bet you have a _ton_ of fun stuff planned for the two of you already.”

Pietro hadn’t even done anything to earn the third look. He raised his eyebrows in return. Unfortunately, Lorna saw.

“Oh- am I missing something? Is this one of those twin telepathy things?”

“That doesn’t exist, Lorna. Even for us.”

Her lip was a little too curled to call her expression a smile this time. “Would you tell me if it did?”

Pietro opened his mouth, but Wanda interrupted, knowing he was about to take the invitation to start the fight.

“How long are you thinking of staying, Baby?”

“Oh- I don’t know.” Lorna tipped to lean against her, wrapping her arms around her waist. “Are you staying? Moving in, I mean.”

Pietro tried to catch Wanda’s eye before she answered. She hadn’t brought much, but part of him had been getting his hopes up. They spent more time together than apart. And he didn’t mind the separations. Not really. He wrote more, and sometimes better, when he was alone. But he also spent most of his time thinking of what she was doing and where they could move next.

“No. But I don’t have plans to leave any time soon.”

“Well, great! I like playing it loose.”

Wanda winced apologetically at him. Pietro shook his head, just to one side.

“So… where’s fun in New York?”

~

In the end, Wanda had to pick the bar, as Pietro refused to take them to any of his favorite places. It was crowded, but low energy, with live music and a pool table. The band was good, and Wanda could tell Pietro enjoyed it, even if he was making an effort to appear unimpressed.

“I thought we were going somewhere _fun_.”

“This is the kind of place _we_ like.” Wanda’s obliging smile was wearing thin. “I don’t know how to find good dancing clubs.”

“’Good dancing clubs’?” Lorna grimaced. “Listen to you. You’re lucky to have me here to update you. You sound like two facebook moms.”

“I don’t have a facebook.” Pietro was clearly barely listening. He had been watching the bass player’s hands for the past ten minutes.

“Of course you don’t.”

“What- Pietro? I didn’t know you came here!”

Wanda kept a hand on her twin’s arm and watched the set of his shoulders. But he seemed relaxed enough as the young man—boy, really—slapped his back.

“I don’t.” Pietro’s expression did not change, but he took a beer off a passing waitress’s tray and handed it to the boy. “Peter.”

“Oh, thanks man. Can I…?”

“Sure.”

The boy seemed pleased as he slid into the only empty chair at their table, next to Lorna.

“I’m sorry-“ he stuck out a hand to her. “Peter.”

“Lorna.” Wanda did not like the smile she was giving him.

“And this is Wanda? The twin, right?”

“Yes-“ Wanda shook his hand. “And Lorna is our little sister.”

“Oh yeah-“ he left his inflection carefully neutral, clearly far too polite to say Pietro had only ever mentioned _one_ sister. “But…”

“Half-sister.” Lorna clarified. She still had that dangerous smile. “Our dad is a right bastard.”

“Oh- um- I’m sorry?”

“It’s fine- we don’t see him.” Wanda took another drink from a waitress and pushed it across to Peter, hoping to send the conversation in another direction. “Lorna’s mother raised her in the states.”

“Oh- so that’s why she doesn’t rock the Dracula vibe.”

Wanda felt Pietro tense next to her and put a hand on his arm. Lorna’s smile grew.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Whoa- sorry, man. I just-“

“He means the accent, _Drágám_.” Wanda forced a laugh. “Don’t be so defensive.”

“Yeah, bro. Don’t bite.”

Wanda kicked Lorna under the table. “Oh- and we shouldn’t have given you those, Peter.”

“Why not?”

“You’re only 18.” Wanda shot Lorna a look as she said it. She did not like how close their sister was leaning towards the boy.

“How’d you know that?”

“Oh—“ she waved a hand vaguely—“Pietro speaks of you, of course. You found that adorable Harmony for him to give me.”

“Yeah- that’s me.” Peter was clearly surprised that Pietro had mentioned him at all. And more than a little pleased, by the look of things.

“Oh- that’s sweet.” Lorna had turned the smile back on them now. “So nice Pietro has a boyfriend.”

Wanda kicked her again while Peter choked on his beer.

“Oh no- we’re not-“

“Oh well-“ Lorna wrapped a hand around his arm and pulled up to his feet. “Then you can ask me to dance, can’t you?”

~

They walked back to the house. Pietro spent all twelve blocks trying to think of a way to get rid of both Peter and Lorna at the same time. Wanda was hugging his arm to her side, usually a sure sign that she knew he was thinking things that would only cause them more trouble. So they ended up sprawled over the livingroom until the sky outside started to lighten.

“Baby? I think it’s time we all turned in. It’s morning.”

“Oh…” Lorna set down the guitar she had been playing with/almost breaking. “I guess so.”

She lifted the strap and moved to throw it down carelessly, but Pietro caught the neck.

“Don’t.”

“Woah- man. You’re fast when you wanna be, huh?”

Pietro exchanged a look with Wanda, who inclined her head toward the stairs.

“Uh… Peter? I think… I think it’s time you head out. You probably have… homework? Right?”

“Oh- yeah. Totally.”

“He’ll leave soon.” Lorna flopped onto the couch next to Peter and Pietro’s heart sank. “But not yet, right Peter?”

“I-“ Peter was perceptive enough to know he should leave, but Lorna was pressed up against him, head on his shoulder. “I’ll just-“

“He’s going to finish his beer before he goes.” Lorna finished for him, holding Pietro’s gaze as she smiled. “You two always go to bed _so_ early and leave me on my own.”

“Well, don’t stay up too long, Baby.” Wanda kissed Lorna’s cheek. “Lovely to meet you, Peter.”

“You too.”

“Come, _Drágám_.”

Wanda took Pietro’s hand and led him down the hall to his bedroom. She tried to ignore the conversation they left behind them and rolled her eyes at Lorna’s carefully insinuating tones.

“She calls him that. What does it mean?”

“Oh it’s just a term of endearment- like Babe or Lover.”

Wanda took the flask from Pietro’s pocket and poured them two small glasses while he laid down with a groan.

“What are you doing?”

“You look pale, _Drágám_.” She sat at the end of his bed and passed him one of the glasses. “You aren’t feeding enough. I can tell.”

He took it and dropped the contents into his mouth. She was right and he tilted his head back against the wall above his headboard, closing his eyes to enjoy the rush.

“I’m worried about Lorna.”

“About her? Or about Peter?”

He hummed and lifted his arm as the mattress shifted under her as she crawled up to his side, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“Both, I guess,” she sighed and kissed his collarbone. “Sometimes I think we should be better to her but… she has to go. I need you. Just you. To myself.”

He kissed her head and didn’t say how relieved he was to hear it.

~

Wanda woke and knew immediately that something had happened. Sometimes she picked up on the wrong senses though. The heartbreak and screams of a miscarriage down the street. The hate and desperation of a gang fight. So she knew there was wrong nearby, but she convinced herself it was not _their_ wrong. But when she stepped into the living room, she dropped the mug she had been bringing to Lorna.

“Oh fuck me.”

She crossed to the couch where Peter sat, exactly where she had seen him last. White as paper, head dropped back, two angry red marks on his throat, and Lorna curled up asleep across his lap.

“Fuck.”

Wanda dropped onto the couch with them. She grabbed Lorna’s chin to check the damage.

“Fuck.”

“Ugg- what-“

“Get up!” She slapped Lorna across the face. “Get up and clean yourself up! You are _disgusting_!”

“What are you-“

“Look what you have done to this boy!”

“I couldn’t _help_ it…” Lorna groaned as she sat up. “I couldn’t help it, alright? He was just so cute. And I couldn’t stop drinking and now I feel sick.”

“What do you expect- he’s a fucking _college student_! You’ve probably ingested more anxiety medication and Ritalin than anyone in history!”

Wanda fell back against the couch, a hand over her eyes. She knew this was how it would end. This was _always_ how Lorna’s visits ended. But she always deluded herself that they could either kick her out before anything happened, or she would eventually learn her lesson.

A floorboard creaked.

“You drank Peter.”

Wanda dropped her hand. He didn’t look angry yet. Just stared at the lifeless body of the boy on his couch with mussed hair and in only a pair of rumpled jeans.

“Pietro-“

“You _drank_ him.”

Lorna squirmed, but offered a bloodstained smile.

“Sorry?”

“Get the fuck-“ he crossed in an instant and pulled her up by the arm. “Out.”

“Hey!” Lorna twisted and tried to catch Wanda’s eye, clearly thinking she would protest the rough treatment. “What-“

“Get the fuck out of my house!”

Wanda followed them and snatched Lorna’s purse off an upturned chair. Pietro opened the door and shoved her out onto the steps. Lorna screamed as she tripped and had to grab the low brick wall to keep from tumbling down onto the sidewalk.

“What the fuck-“

“Out!”

“What is _wrong_ with you two?!” she snarled, making to come back up the stairs until Wanda threw her bag at her chest. “What the fuck- that’s my-“

“Leave, if you know what’s good for you, Baby.”

“You always call me that-“

“Because that’s what you are! You are an infant, Lorna! And you never grow! It is time you left us alone!”

“You two are fucked. Up. You know that?”

“And you are just a child looking for attention!” Wanda barely noticed that she had started shouting as well.

“You don’t know shit! Do you have any _idea_? What it’s like with you two? It’s worse than third-wheeling best friends and newlyweds _combined_! Do you know what that _feels_ like?!”

“We don’t fucking _care_ , Lorna!” Wanda took a step forward but for once, it was Pietro’s hand on her wrist holding her back. “We don’t care what little martyr complex you’ve dreamed up! You’re a spoiled, childish-“

“Oh you two are disgusting! Fuck you!” She stormed down the steps onto the sidewalk, then turned for one last shout. “Why don’t you just get it over with and _fuck_ each other!”

~

Pietro sat on the couch next to Peter’s body while Wanda went out for a few things. He stared at the mess of a life around him, committing it to memory so he could recreate the best parts.

He heard the door open and close and Wanda’s steps on the stairs. She stood in the doorway for a moment and sighed.

“I’m so sorry, _Drágám_. He seemed like such a nice kid.”

“You know how hard it is to find someone willing to put up with me?” He tossed the empty beer bottle next to the body across the room. “She could have just _turned_ him…”

Wanda sighed again and crossed to sit on the other side of the body.

“People would have seen you at the bar last night. I bought some dye. You won’t get far with such a distinctive look.”

“I like my hair.”

“I know, _Drágám_. But don’t sulk.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“Do you have a car?”

“By the water.”

“I’ll get it. Why don’t you start on your hair. I’ll be right back.”

While she went to get the car, he put the dye in and found a rug to roll Peter up in.

“Alright- it’s in the alley.” She was back again in what felt like moments. “Cute. You know how much I love Cadillacs.”

“I know.”

She must have heard the tight note in his voice because she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his back as he stood staring at the body on the couch.

“Come on. Let’s get him up.”

They dumped him in the Hudson and drank most of Pietro’s remaining supply in the airport parking lot before taking the night’s first available flight to Mumbai.

~

Wanda had to drag him by the hand around the city. Even gorging themselves before leaving, traveling was draining. They stumbled into her apartment and fell onto her bed, falling asleep immediately. Wanda woke first and cursed when she checked the time.

“Pietro—“ she shook his shoulder and when he only groaned, slapped him hard across the face—“Pietro!”

“Ow…” he groaned and slowly blinked his eyes open. “What you do that for?”

“We have to get up, _Drágám_ —“ she tugged on his jacket, trying to pull him up—“ we need to see Clint. We need his supply.”

“Tired.”

“I know, _Drágám_ , I know. But we have to—“ she pulled him into a sitting position—“ get moving. We’re weak already.”

At this, he seemed to come to himself enough to get onto his feet and wrap an arm around her waist as they walked. People seemed to stare at them more together than they had at her when she was alone. Wanda glared at anyone who came too close to them, but the expression was probably lost behind her dark glasses.

“Hey- hey travelers. Come. We have what you need.”

She rolled her eyes and steered him to walk faster. She was not in the mood for the usual welcome of the city.

“Hey! You two! Pretty girl and pale boy. You want what we have. You _need_ what we have.”

Wanda tightened her arm around Pietro, but he stopped anyway and turned, letting the nearby streetlight reflect off of his eyes to show their nocturnal glow.

“Fuck right off.”

The men cringed, and moved back into the shadows.

They were stumbling from weakness by the time they reached Clint’s building. Wanda kept having to lean up against the wall. Pietro tugged on her until she continued on, but was weaving like a drunk himself. At last, they made it to the right floor, but Wanda felt her heart sink as she saw the paper pinned to his door.

“What’s-“

She snatched it and opened the message, her heart already in the soles of her shoes.

          _Kiddo,_

_Tried calling, but must have an old number. Supply here is dry. No time to find someone new. Hope you’ve got a backup. I’m off to Budapest. Nat’s back in our old apartment by the river. Come stay._

_See you then,_

_C._

“Fuck.”

~

Pietro was completely numb. Wanda quietly muttered curses under her breath as she pulled him through the city. She was furious and scared, but he couldn’t even summon the energy to match her. The world swam in front of him like they were walking under water. It was hard enough to move for that to be true. Every bit of light hurt deeply- a sure sign that they needed to feed or they would not last long.

Wanda finally gave up on her anger and leaned in closer, muttering assurances and promises they both knew she had no power to keep.

“Stay here,” she ordered softly, leaning him up against a brick wall. “Don’t get yourself into any trouble, okay _Drágám_? I will be right back.”

He kissed her hand and let her go, closing his eyes and letting his face press against the cool stone of the wall. It took a long time for Pietro to realize it, but there was music nearby. Decent music. Possibly even full on _good_ music. He wandered away from the wall toward the sound.

It was a singer and guitarist pair in a rundown bar. They were closer to Wanda’s neighborhood again, and there was a haze of smoke that definitely wasn’t tobacco hanging in the air. Pietro felt so at home, he almost didn’t notice Wanda stepping up behind him.

“Good, aren’t they?”

He nodded, watching the guitarist’s hands.

“He’s mad for her, but she thinks it’s just sex. The pain of it will destroy what chance they have of reaching their full potential together.”

He nodded again. “Isn’t that always how it goes?”

“Sometimes.” She kissed his shoulder and tugged on his hand. “Come. I have something cute for you.”

She led him to a dark bench in a back alley and pushed him to sit before putting the gift in his hands.

“It’s almost as old as we are.” She was resting her chin on his shoulder as he ran his hands over the painted body of the instrument. “Isn’t she sweet? Like a little Parisian girl with cordial in her blood.”

He nodded, barely having the strength for that, let alone speech.

“Do you remember that one bit of theory?”

He hummed rather than answered, as she would continue on anyway. It took a moment for him to realize that his hands were playing a slow, sad tune. His concerto melody.

“About the bodies… other sides of the earth- and they still react.” She yawned and burrowed closer to him. “Spooky.”

He hummed again. There was movement down at the end of the alley. But he barely had the presence to register it until a breeze wafted the smell of the two young lovers towards them.

“Ah…” Her voice was half laugh, half sigh. “Been awhile, hasn’t it?”

“Mhm…”

“They’re lovely, at least.”

“Mmm…”

“Kind of an old-fashioned scene though. Can’t remember the last time we turned someone.”

“I get the girl this time, you got the last one.”

He felt her lips press to his shoulder through his shirt.

“Whatever you say, _Drágám_.”


End file.
